Wild news: television and Priceline.com’s own William Shatner has recorded a prog-rock concept album! The first single is a ponderous and mysterious affair called “Ponder the Mystery.” The video sees the artist wandering through the forest, sittin’ around in the desert, and asking a bunch of really big metaphysical questions.
And, well, since he asked? I have decided to answer William’s queries about existence.
To dinner, then to the drug store, then home. Toward small bits of personal growth that collectively amount to human progress. To Applebee’s. To sleep. To the movies. But ultimately? To a hole in the ground.
Nope, probably not. It would be absurd to think that the only intelligent life in the entire universe. On an existential level? Well, kind of. We try to make connections with one another, and that helps us get through our time here, but it’s hard to feel like you’re anything other than fundamentally alone in the world when you’re watching a William Shatner video on YouTube after a long, hard day full of awkward human interactions and attempts to force a conversation with the Starbucks barista.
Yes and no! There is most certainly always room for an individual to learn and to experience unfamiliar things. And there are new discoveries and inventions being made each day. But is there likely to be a radical transformation in the way human beings experience the world, in our lifetime? No, unfortunately, there probably is not.
I know this seems like a contradiction of terms, but foreign policy isn’t always a cut-and-dried affair. While the actual act of bombing a nation run by a hostile regime is, of course, the very opposite of peaceful, the idea is that with the regime gone, peace becomes more possible in the long term.
Alternate answer: Yes, though it is a far cry from ideal.
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